Of course, pm knows that the case against anwar is weak. But this is not an everyday court case where facts and law mattered. It is politically motivated and so neither facts nor law mattered.

The question I would want to know is what is the particular political motivation?

Given the close proximity in timing of the by-election and the charge which cannot be attributed to pure coincidence, one possibility is to derail anwar’s participation in the by-election. This they will do by locking him up during trial (i.e. he would be denied bail). However, they know very well that despite his absence, anwar will still win the by-election. He is unstopable, what more when he is PP. They also know that the act of charging and locking him up at this point in time would be counter-productive for it would almost certainly boost his popularity. It would be like lending him a hand in his campaigning efforts.

Why would they do a thing like that? That would be truly odd.

Could it be that they are driven to take odd stands and make odd decisions because they really dont have much choice or room to manoeuvre? In other words, is it an act of desperation?

This could well be the reason if one were to look at the current political strength of UMNO. PM’s expiry date has already been stamped and DPM is clouded in too much controversies. The rest are no heavyweights and in any event they would readily clash against each other for position in the party. UMNO is one big mess internally. MIC, MCA and the rest are now too insignificant to contribute to BN because of UMNO’s big brother attitude all these years.

And UMNO’s (I speak of UMNO only instead of BN because the other component parties are really no more than mere buzzing flies) policies are in shambles, corruption has hit record high with new ones being uncovered every other day, bridge cracking up, rood leaking, pipes bursting, and the list goes on with no end in sight.

All these no doubt contributed to plunging popularity rating of the PM and his gang. The PM may seemingly not appear to be have been affected by the drastic drop in his popularity when he said “nevermind-lah”, nonetheless, the act of bringing anwar to court now cannot be seen as anything other than an act of desperation on pm’s part.

But politics is ruled by popularity and he who is more popular would very naturally take over from he who is not. So what is the big deal? If the people no longer desire your service, you simply do the obvious – stop serving. Cant the pm do that? Cant UMNO accept that?

Of course no. Vested personel interest is standing in the way. Its not a simple matter of pm stepping aside. Its the after effects that he is trying to subdue. He may hide them under the carpet now when he is still in power. But he would not be able to do so when he is out of power. Look at Taksin, ex-Thai premier. His wife has to spend time in jail now.

So what PR is facing a desperate opponent. One who is panicking and in pieces. PR’s strategist must take full advantage and plot their way carefully.